ADEREMI'S NOTEBOOK

The Other Africa (1)

Crossroads back in 1960
In 2007, we are still at the crossroads

Phat City Bonuses (2)

Peter Hain, Northern Ireland Minister has suggested “City firms should donate two-thirds of their bonus pots to charity rather than giving employees six-figure bonuses”. We all know this is a very sensitive subject.

People (mostly “city workers”) have been making their views known on here. Below are some interesting comments.

‘Two-thirds ? Why stop there ? Take the lot. After a while I’ll be able to register as a homeless person, receive ‘charity’ - and probably make more money doing nothing than I did working my nuts off !’.

This is not bad idea if you think about it. No?

“Big buck bankers already give more than enough of their hard-earned dosh to the taxman. I suggest Mr Hain speaks to the Treasury about redirecting some more funds to the poor. We are already over-taxed (income tax, national insurance, council tax, VAT, stamp duties, death duties, congestion charges, parking fees, etc) - the government needs to look at how they spend all this money before thinking of stupid ways to raise yet more revenue, which will doubtless also be wasted”

Mr Hain, please speak to Mr Brown. Maybe he wiil agree to redirect some of those funds to your department.

Rubbish tax, coming soon.

TransCorp Nigeria (4)

100% Nigerian. 100% World Class

Beautiful Slogan, you would agree. The slogan could become a problem if TransCorp decided to expand outside Nigeria. For now, TransCorp is 100% Nigerian, not sure 100% World Class.

A friend told me about TransCorp’s roadshow presentation at St. James Park in London and I gladly agreed to attend. Naturally I was excited about the attending my first Nigerian roadshow. I made a few observations; allow me to share them with you.

The IPO of TransCorp should be the gold standard for other companies looking to “go public”. The IPO prospectus omitted crucial information. It failed to state the any “meaningful” historical accounts for the company. After the Cadbury Nigeria incident, accounts should be detailed and thorough. The IPO prospectus should have some historical accounts for NITEL and TransCorp Hilton to give prospective investors an idea of the profitability of these businesses. Forecasts are only useful when compared with historical accounts.

At the roadshow presentation I attended, the TransCorp Executives could not confirm the number of subscribers on the M-tel network. I find that very odd. Are they suggesting they paid good money without due diligence? This report offers very little comfort to prospective shareholders suggesting subscribers in 2006 stood at 200,000 from 1.2 million in 2005.

The same report suggests 75% of NITEL was sold to TransCorp. In the IPO prospectus, TransCorp owns 51% of TransCorp Telecomms. TransCorp Telecomms owns the 75% of NITEL. So TransCorp owns half of the 75% stake? This is poor disclosure.

The roadshow presentation was not what I expected. Standing for thirty minutes and listening to someone defend Obsanjo’s Tata idea for Nigeria was not cool. The TransCorp Executives failed to communicate their ambition for the company. I’m more optimistic but let’s see what happens in May first.

Akintunde Akinleye (1)

I saw this photo for the first time today. It was a photo of a man rinsing his face after gas pipeline explosion in Lagos back in December 2006. The photo taken by Akintunde Akinleye, won first prize in the Spot News Singles Catergory of the World Press Photo of the Year. (via Maryt)